Washington Design Center

An Insider’s Look at the Capital’s Finest Sources

Washington, D.C., has variously been described as a sleepy southern village and the center of the global village, but one of the most accurate descriptions of its appeal can be found in the 19th-century novel Democracy, written by Henry Adams, the grandson of President John Quincy Adams and the great-grandson of President John Adams. Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, the heroine, moves to Washington because “she wished to see the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society, at work. What she wanted was POWER.”

Interestingly, Mrs. Lee’s first step in acquiring power is to redecorate her house—as it was then, so it is today. It naturally follows that not far in importance behind the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court is the Washington Design Center and its over 70 to-the-trade showrooms.

The design center occupies a 1919 building originally intended for cold storage. It stands two blocks from the Capitol and two blocks from the National Mall. The center opened in 1983, and the style climate in the capital has changed in those 20 years. “As a city we’ve become less single-minded in style,” says Washington designer Thomas Pheasant. “We were in a conservative visual arena, bound by the historic look that enhances our city, but those boundaries have fallen. We now have clients from all over the world.”

Pera, for instance, a relatively small showroom distinguished by its leather-upholstered furniture, opened in January 2001. Co-owner Roberta Austin had several small businesses when she met partner Hakan Ezer, a Turkish interior architect whose work is well known in Istanbul. “Washington is cosmopolitan and sophisticated,” says Austin, “but it’s also small enough that Hakan’s work stands out.” New York–based designer Juan Pablo Molyneux made a point of coming to the city to see such Pera pieces as a recamier adapted by Ezer from the traditional beds used in Turkish baths.

Stephanie Odegard, who opened her rug showroom in 1997, bases many of her designs on “reinterpretations of ancient textiles.” In the past she has been inspired by rugs from Nepal and Tibet, but recently Odegard has branched out with the Art Déco–influenced Miami collection, which she calls “architectural,” and her Kyoto collection. Currently she is working with pre-Columbian designs. But she also perceives a strong bent for conservative interiors in the capital. “Classic colors are more popular here,” she says. “We’re more likely to sell a design in red or celadon than in marigold or saffron.”

Apropos of color, David Bright, vice president of The Robert Allen Group, which designs and distributes Beacon Hill fabrics and furniture, says, “Our new Washington showroom has already become a color destination for the city’s professionals.” The showroom refined the company’s approach to arranging fabrics by color, a concept that has since been used at other locations nationwide. “Beacon Hill silks have been particularly popular,” Bright adds. “We do a lot of work with diplomats, and silks are big with these clients.”

The Washington branch of the long-established firm Scalamandré also takes on government contracts. “We have our own mill in this country, and the federal government is usually required to use American goods,” says showroom manager Anne Culley. “For this reason, we’ve worked on many government projects.

“We also do a lot of work with the White House,” she continues. “During the Clinton administration, almost all of the public rooms were restored using many of our fabrics. The satin on the walls in the Red Room is ours.” Culley notes that President Clinton’s Oval Office incorporated many Scalamandré patterns. The set for The West Wing has an almost exact replica of the Clinton Oval Office (see Architectural Digest, May 2002), including Scalamandré’s Little Rock Diamond on the chairs. The Oval Office was redone for President Bush, and “the chair in front of the fireplace where he sits for televised interviews is a Scalamandré pattern called Federal Stripe,” says Culley.

Ann Lambeth, co-owner of J. Lambeth & Company, which has been in the Washington Design Center since 1983, says that the showroom carries predominantly European fabrics. Sanderson designs have been used at the British embassy, and Rubelli fabrics have been used at the Italian embassy. Among Lambeth’s recent offerings are handblock-printed fabrics from the Canadian company Hazelton House.

“Washington has gone from being a lackluster market to a booming, cosmopolitan place,” says Eleanor McKay, co-owner with her husband, Joseph Niermann, of Niermann Weeks. “Even though the design world here has a conservative base, people are willing to experiment.”

Holly Hunt, the founder of the enormous showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart that bears her name, opened her showroom in Washington in 1999. “There are better designers here than in many other cities, and that makes a wonderful, very sophisticated climate,” says Hunt. She recently added the furniture of Los Angeles designer Rose Tarlow to her inventory.

The Rist Showroom has been in the design center since its opening. The showroom is known for high-quality reproduction furniture and for fabrics made by such English firms as Marvic Textiles, which specializes in toiles and floral prints. While vice president Mark Rist has, in the Washington tradition, worked with embassies, the showroom is also a regional source for designers from cities ranging from Pittsburgh to Charleston, West Virginia. “We have fabrics with a real early American look,” says Rist, “such as the ones made by Williamsons Fabrics in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, that draw on vintage hatboxes and prints and Hudson Valley wallpapers. Professionals with very clearly defined tastes, like those from the Middleburg hunt country, are drawn to that like moths to a flame.”

Whether they’re looking for Louis XV reproductions to make a grand statement in an embassy or for reproductions of old American wallpaper for the walls of a Virginia country estate, the Washington Design Center is the place where capital designers feel at home.